On the History of Cullen House
Cullen House was originally built by the Cullen family vampires and was situated by the Western Lake. It was possibly the most metrosexual lake house ever built in Luceti. The house was memorable for its modern open floor plan, spacious living room area with stone fireplace, and heavy carved wooden front doors. In addition to the living room, there were three bedrooms on the first floor, along with a bathroom and a kitchen. (This kitchen had no dining room table, notably.) On the second floor there were three more bedrooms, though none of the bedrooms in the house had any beds. An attic with two large skylights spanned the length and width of the house. Cullen House was never equipped with heat or electricity. Running water was available through the use of a water tank attached to the house, and the highly-inefficient but charmingly decorative stone fireplace provided whatever heat the inhabitants needed. In spite of its appearance of luxury, life in Cullen House would not be easy for anyone other than the undead. 'A Pirate Moves In' After the Malnosso sent the last remaining member of the Cullen family home, the Cullen House stood empty for quite a few months. Then, around Christmas in Y3, an increasingly mad Jack Sparrow decided to move to what he soon came to see as the “sparkly eunuch mansion” to escape the devils plaguing him in the village. He thought the isolation of Cullen House would help keep his friends safe from him, especially after one of his Fetches tried to get him to kill Grune and others. Jack found the mansion lonely, isolated, and not particularly helpful where his madness was concerned. Living out there with few supplies, far from Good Spirits, also forced him to sober up for a few weeks, which made the madness worse. When he finally did return to the village, the pirate immediately sought out the bar. From then on in, he made sure to have a stock of rum available at Cullen House to drive out those demons. While the normally-very-social-and-gregarious pirate lived alone by the lake, he did have his share of houseguests. Blackbeard, his erstwhile “captain,” spent time living out there on and off. Leonard McCoy sheltered there after Emony was sent home from Luceti. Buffy Summers hid out there on her birthday, along with her sister, Dawn. Nami “dropped in” accidentally on her return to Luceti, causing lots of awkwardness. And Archie Kennedy turned into a wee little man and lived there for a week and made onionskin fairy curtains. While Jack had come to dread being alone at Cullen House, he could not face moving back into one of the “boxes”—large community buildings—back at the village. He never would have foreseen that the place would be the site of his budding romance with a former enemy-turned-ally, Buffy Summers. He began to have a fondness for the place once actual Good Things started happening, there. When his good friend Derek Bliss’s vampirism infection began to get the better of him, Jack saw fit to offer him shelter in the attic---even though, by that point, Jack had an abhorrence of vampires. Cullen House had been a shelter to so many others, why not Derek? Jack warned Buffy about this development, and soon after the vampire slayer and the vampire hunter engaged in a fight to the almost-death at the house. Giles, whom Jack detested, ended up bleeding over Cullen House’s floors. The pirate very nearly deserted the place after that, except for the fact that he felt he had nowhere else to go. 'The Moving of Cullen House' Living on the beach was the plan, but so far from the village without shelter or a reliable source of food and water was not going to be easy. A certain magical girl fixed all of that; Katie McCoy (Silvertoes Kate) agreed to move Cullen House to the shore. In return for this favor, Jack gave the girl full use of his attic. He whitewashed the walls and cleaned out every bit of evidence that Derek had ever been in there, making it into a playroom for Katie to use at her leisure. Once again Cullen House became a place of comfort and shelter where one could escape one’s troubles for a while, particularly for the often-troubled Buffy. When Giles was killed, she spent a week at the house as she tried to cope with his loss. Cullen House is now located on the beach, just south of the ruined fort. It takes around one half hour to reach the village from Cullen House if the transporter to the barracks is used. While it has a spectacular view from all of those wide windows and is close to where the pirate’s boat is moored, the home is in a place that isn’t all that suitable for comfortable living. There is still no electricity or heat in the place. Jack treks in supplies from the village weekly, including plenty of rum. He is also trying to stock up on firewood for the winter, as there are no forests in close proximity to the ocean. (One may find scrubby trees in the steep mountain foothills, but logistically it’s very difficult to harvest wood there.) The pirate has built a rainwater-collection tank that feeds into the house’s water tank, though he would be happier with a well or some way of piping water down from the mountains in case rain becomes scarce. Since the house was not Malnosso-built and therefore not self-repairing, it is vulnerable to the elements or to potential disasters as any normal house would be.